Telecom companies have told the Centre that they will not be able to address the issue of call drops as long as various city agencies and municipalities continue to seal mobile towers.
In a joint letter, the Chief Executive Officers of six telecom companies have said that while on the one hand the industry has stepped up investments to improve networks, actions by municipal bodies are rendering the entire effort futile.
“The industry has been mandated by your good-self and the Prime Minister to ensure no call drops, but the municipalities’ actions are at cross purposes with this objective and hamper the efforts of the industry to address the issue,” the CEOs wrote in the letter sent to the TRAI Chairman and the Secretary of the Department of Telecom.
The Telecom Ministry had earlier asked mobile operators to resolve the issue of call drops within 45 days. It also asked TRAI to bring in a strict monitoring mechanism to hold operators responsible for frequent call drops being faced by consumers across the country. The TRAI has proposed compensation for mobile users by telecom companies.
Larger public interest But operators said before they are held accountable for call drops, the local bodies should be asked to act in “consonance with the constitutional principles of the larger public interest and in alignment with the larger vision of the Government of India.”
In the last year alone, about 1,700 sites had been shut down all over India. With every 40 sites being sealed, there is an average of 20 per cent increase in call drops. In the past two days, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has sealed 16 sites. Similarly, sites have been shut down in Mumbai. “The consumers and industry are suffering due to these unilateral actions and are unable to deal with the almost daily shut down of cell sites. While on the one hand the industry has stepped up investments in technology, in spectrum, in people and in a range of automated tools for network optimisation to improve networks, these actions are making the entire effort and investment futile,” the letter said.
There are about 4 lakh towers across the country set up by various companies. While this was enough as long as the operators’ offered only voice telephony services, huge growth in data services using 3G and 4G technologies is straining mobile networks. To compensate for the growth in usage, operators have to roll out new tower sites and get access to more spectrum.
With the government clearing the policy for spectrum sharing and trading, the need for more airwaves will be addressed to some extent. The sealing of towers by the local agencies, therefore, can come in the way of faster rollout of telecom services.
The letter was signed by Gopal Vittal, Joint Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Airtel; Himanshu Kapania, Managing Director, Idea Cellular; Sergey Savchenko, CEO, Sistema Shyam Teleservices; N Srinath, Managing Director, Tata Teleservices; Gurdip Singh, Reliance Communications CEO-Consumer Business; and Sunil Sood, CEO and MD, Vodafone India.